


The Origin Story

by Margo_Kim



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Character Study, Female Protagonist, Female-Centric, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Margo_Kim/pseuds/Margo_Kim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was born in the streets of New York City in the shadows of the buildings she was trained to bring down. <i>Natasha-centric character study.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Origin Story

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://avengers-tables.livejournal.com/profile)[**avengers_tables**](http://avengers-tables.livejournal.com/), prompt "Mission"

She was born in Volgograd on the darkest night of the year. Volgograd or Stalingrad or Tsaritsyn. The city has not has as many names as her, but it has been torn down and rebuilt in some new conqueror’s image enough. It is a testament to power, how easily it slips from one hand to next, and though she will never again walk its streets, it is her city, always hers.

Her papa joked that it was so cold that night, she came out of the womb with ice in her veins, and he was proud of her for that. He had wanted a boy once, as men often do. She changed his mind, and he gave her his heart. Never was there a daughter more loved than she. All these years later, she still believes that. For her tenth birthday, he gave her new ballet shoes and a set of throwing knives. When she could hit a bull’s-eye fifteen meters away, he gave her the cake.

That’s the truth. The origin story.

Or rather, it’s one truth, one story, and Lord knows there's so many ways to say the same thing. Here’s another.

She was born in fire and ash. Her father is the edge of a knife; her mother the killing stroke. She measures her age in the bodies in her wake, and she is old beyond number.

Once when she was wearing someone else’s skin—Amanda Kohl, born and raised in the Bronx, an animal lover with three cats and a dog named Rusty, a rented apartment in Manhattan, a job at a high-clearance security firm that should know better than to leave national defense contracts in a safe where anyone could get to them—a coworker asked if she ever planned on having kids. The mouth that was not hers laughed--no, no, not for me--and later she studied her borrowed face in the bathroom mirror, looking for what that woman had seen that said she was anyone who should be responsible for life.

Or—

She was born in the streets of New York City in the shadows of the buildings she was trained to bring down. Nick Fury clasped his hand on her shoulder and she nearly ripped off three of his fingers before he pinned her to the ground. “Are you going to behave now?” he asked. She spat in his eye. He broke her nose. The American government quietly granted her amnesty for everything she might have ever done (she knows better than to confirm or deny) and Fury gave her new papers, a new name, a new life identical to the old save for the flag flapping over her work.

Take your pick. Each path leads the same place.

There is no such thing as the truth, but this is the closest she will get: She has no origin. She never had one. She is Natasha Romanoff or Natalie Rushman or any number of names typed in passports that one agency or another has handed her. There is no “before”, no hidden self.

She is the mission and she can die only when the mission is done and the mission will never be done.

And now the mission is this: five bickering children locked in a room trying to name themselves.

“You have a codename, Tony,” Rogers says, weary as the world is old. “You cannot change it to Admiral Asskicker.”

Tony, charming in spite of himself and everything that he is, smiles. “You just don’t want me to outrank you.”

“I’m Hawkeye,” Clint says proudly as if that is something to be proud of.

Rogers nods. He seems simply grateful that Clint did not put up a fuss. Already she feels closer to the good Captain. “And you, Agent Romanov?” They turn to stare at her, these men. Her burden. Her team. They’ve banded together for less than a week and they’ve already saved the world together. She has high hopes in spite of herself. Her father would be so disappointed.

Somewhere, in a blurred memory of another life, a red-haired man in the woods kneels down by his daughter and hands her a knife too heavy for her to hold. In the kindest gesture he will ever give her, he wraps his large fingers around her tiny fist and helps her slit the fallen deer’s throat. In ten years’ time, this man will be dead. Murdered by the people he dedicated his life to. This afternoon he whispers in his little girl’s ear advice his killers won’t heed: “Do not hesitate. You’ll only hurt it more. Cut quickly, cut deeply. Mercy in death is the only gift we can offer.” When the blood stops flowing he kisses her cheek and gives her the pet name that she will write on her heart. The name is not appropriate for a four year old girl. That is why it is perfect for her.

“The Black Widow,” she says and she is born anew once more.


End file.
